Taking a Time Out from Life’s Drama

Experience. Expand. Experience. Expand. That’s the cycle that keeps playing itself out in our lives.

They’re created to bring situations for us to experience, hopefully to learn things about ourselves and our lives. Then we get the chance to expand by putting it to work. Once we do (or don’t), the cycle repeats itself.

It’s that way with the dramas of our lives and world around us. These situations are there for a reason, and they’re going to play out to completion, one way or another.

Take this cough of mine. It’s been hanging on for months now, but got significantly worst after a trip north a few weeks ago.

At times it’s so severe I can’t stop coughing or catch my breath. At those moments I’ve caught myself wondering whether it will eventually take me out.

Yeah, maybe I should seek medical treatment. Then again, I’ve been through all that before. A number of years ago I had one that was even worse, and went through all the xrays, antibiotics, and other treatments to no avail. Ultimately I discovered the problem was something I carried inside of me that had to get out. And once I did, “miraculously” the cough disappeared.

At least, until it cropped up again.

So despite all the palliatives I’ve tried, I knew that going to war with my cough and its cause probably wasn’t the answer. It was a drama I set in motion that’s somewhat spiraled out of control, and upset the apple cart of my life in the process.

And yet I knew I had to let it run its course, whatever that was. Until I got whatever value this experience was created to bring me, all the effort to make it go away would probably be futile — not to mention make it drag on longer.

It reminds me of what’s going on in our world now, especially here in the United States.

We’re seeing a great drama playing out in our political affairs. Liberals and conservatives are locked in their usual death match, each trying to craft a solution to a virus that’s coming out for all to see.

What is that virus? It is the seed of self-interest that infects our common affairs, causing those who can to do their best to stack the cards in favor of their interests and agendas.

Some of those are obvious — the big money influence over our political “leaders,” and their susceptibility to those pressures. Others are their antithetical counterparts — the people with social agendas who want a drastic shift in power and policy, in the process reshaping society in their own image for it (despite the majority of people wanting no part of it).

The proponents of both sides have great arguments to support their causes. And lots of power on their side, ranging anywhere from big money to big thuggery asserted under the guise of “community organizing.”

The result is an infection of the body politic, a virus of conflict that has eaten away at us inside for so very long.

Sure, we can pick one side or another and try to beat it, hopefully enough so that we can return to a semblance of the peace. But defeat is not something that will ever happen. At best the power will shift one way or another for a while, with the wound festering inside until it erupts again at another time or place.

We the people don’t have much choice but to let it play out, and pray that our nation isn’t destroyed in the process. And if it is, then to pick up the pieces and start over (much like I’d have to do if this cough deteriorates and I check out of this life as a result).

Perhaps, though, there is a course of action for us both that will give us a better chance to set things right.

For a while now I’ve been talking about disengaging from our dramas long enough for our souls to reset the energy so we can move on.

I’m to that point in dealing with my cough. For my best “weapon” is acceptance that it’s really trying to serve me by “coughing ont” many of these complex idea viruses I’ve had inside me for so long that I kept to myself because I didn’t know how or where to offer them, and wasn’t sure people were ready to hear them anyway.

Recognizing that value offered by the cough, I decided to just allow it to be there while doing my best to “ignore it” and restore as much normal breathing function as I could — doing all those things I knew to increase my lung power and flow of energy within my body.

Most of all, I have begun sitting quietly, connecting with my soul and immersing myself in the energy of my source. Occasionally in that process I will do different meditative exercises. But it’s not so much I’ve consciously sat down to do them so much as I’ve been “guided” by my inner voice to do them as a way of jump starting the energies so they can be freed up from the drama patterns for new, healthier expressions in my life.

I suspect the situation in our outer affairs is much the same. We see what’s going on and want it to stop. Yet those people who are part of it are part of our body politic. They are not to be excised or ignored, but loved and allowed to be as they are, expressing the concerns and interests that provide valuable contributions to our human condition.

That doesn’t mean, though, that we give in to their need to perpetuate their battles. Instead, I suggest we consider simply disengaging from their chaos and conflict and connecting quietly with the oversoul of humanity.

When enough of us do, we can reset the mechanism and allow those conflicts to dissipate naturally as the energies are set to work in new directions. Without our support and participation, they will run their course more quickly, with much less disruption of our lives in the process.

Will it be easy? No. But isn’t easy for me living with this cough, either. Nevertheless, I’ve got to do my best to neutralize its influence if I’m to move beyond it and get back on track.

The same with them. We have to neutralize the influence of these competing extremists who think the only way to solve our problems is by fighting over which side will get its way.

After all, the infection to be treated doesn’t only involve the direction of our country. It’s just as much rooted in our inability to deal with the conflict in our midst and find a way to balance those interests and move on in a more peaceful way.

We will best be served by treating them both as little kids that need a time out and told to go sit off to the side. Insist that they play by the rules we want for our affairs — transparency, accountability, efficiency, effectiveness, responsibility, liberty — where government becomes a mechanism to protect and enhance our ability to go our own ways, rather than an instrument of those who would use it to impose their wills upon us.

This is the alternative that is offered by the political virus resulting in so much greed, discord and oppression in our government and financial systems. It is one we can seize simply by refusing to play their silly game of conflict any longer, taking our own time out and allowing our energies to refocus in a new direction that will better serve us all — a direction where the means (peace) is as important as the end we seek (lives that serve us).

Even as I write this, I feel my cough subsiding. Perhaps it’s only temporary, but considering it got me up at 3:30 this morning to write this, I’ll take it.

Maybe the contests of power that fill the news will begin to subside, too, when we resolve not to join in their battles, but to sit quietly and invite in new perspectives and approaches that don’t require the perpetuation of such conflicts of competing extremes.